Ayuuk leader Arnoldo Nicolás Romero, a municipal commissioner of the Buena Vista ejido in San Juan Guichicovi, a town and municipality in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, was found dead Jan. 21. His body was discovered with several bullet wounds on a private ranch near his community. No arrests have been made or suspects identified. “So far there are few elements that allow us to identify the perpetrators or the motive of the murder,” Carlos Beas Torres, a coordinator of the Union of Indigenous Communities of the Northern Zone of the Isthmus (UCIZONI), told Mongabay over WhatsApp voice messages. “It was apparently a direct attack because the body was found hidden among bushes about 50 meters [164 feet] from the road that connects the town of Buenavista with Santa Ana.” After Romero’s death, UCIZONI released a statement that condemned his killing and demanded that authorities “promptly initiate proceedings and conduct an exhaustive investigation in order to identify and punish those responsible.” His death points to an escalating crisis in the region, as Indigenous peoples face increased dispossession, criminalization and violence for defending their territories from extractive interests and destructive megaprojects. Since Mexico began to develop the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus Tehuantepec in 2019, a large railroad, highway and port project that runs through several Indigenous territories, including Romero’s, land defenders have faced fines and prison sentences and, in some cases, have been threatened or attacked. In October 2024, the El Universal newspaper identified 61 people from the Isthmus of…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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